Jenny and Kevin

How We Met

I met Larry Eichner when he started working as a ski instructor at Snow Creek in Weston, MO. Everyone loved Larry and he soon became a friend that helped me out when I needed someone to work in the adaptive ski program. A couple years after Larry started working at Snow Creek, I found out he had a son that was starting work at Snow Creek. Who knew!? I didn’t know he had 1 son, much less 2! So Kevin and I finally met and I thought, “he’s a pretty cute guy and wow, what a great snowboarder!” Apparently, Kevin had heard about me through his Dad when he would talk about working with me during adaptive ski lessons. Larry’s talk of me intrigued Kevin and he assumed I was his Dad’s age; my young looks interested Kevin and he assumed I was closer to his age; my actual age surprised and confused Kevin; but because I was a friend of his Dad’s, life went on in our separate worlds.

At Snow Creek, I was known as “the girl who was always eating” and when Kevin came along, he started to become “the guy that eats everything.” This soon became a challenge to me and I was determined to get a picture of the two of us eating lunch together at Snow Creek with full trays and then empty ones. Of course, Kevin did beat me in eating all the food on our full trays, but I won’t tell anyone at Snow Creek that! ;) But trying to get together for lunch proved a difficult task because I would ask and we would plan to meet, but then a lesson would show up and one of us would get busy and eat earlier or later. And each time that we talked about getting lunch, a friend of Kevin’s, Alejandro, would be in the background teasing Kevin with, “she wants you!” At the time of course, I didn’t, but this started to get Kevin thinking about how cute I was.

On the last day at Snow Creek, everyone headed out to O’Malley’s Irish Pub in Weston, MO to celebrate our final day together. Larry, myself and many others found ourselves in the cellar where Bob Reeder is known to play the guitar and sing Irish songs, while Kevin and his friends found themselves upstairs getting food. Kevin and I shared our 1st “kiss” when I went upstairs to find food. He gave me leftovers to share with Larry and so in good joking fashion while posing for the camera, I gave him a kiss on the cheek as a thank you. After taking the food downstairs and showing Larry my thank you picture, he promptly told me I was too old for his son! To which I replied, “I’m not interested because I’m trying to set him up with someone else!”

Apparently, setting Kevin up didn’t work out because that following winter they weren’t together. As the season started to get underway, Kevin became very sick with both pneumonia and the flu at the same time. Larry came to Snow Creek telling everyone and he gave me Kevin’s number so that I could send him well wishes. Without any preconceived notions, I texted Kevin to let him know that I hope he would feel better soon. In what I believed to be boredom and cabin fever on his part, he began to text back. I kept replying because I knew that if I was that sick and bored, I’d want someone to talk to me. After about a week of back and forth texting, I accidentally butt-dialed Kevin, to which he still claims I did on purpose. From this point on, we began to talk more and even started watching movies over the phone together. During this time, I began to think that these conversations seemed to be more flirtatious than friendly, but I continued to assume that it was because Kevin had cabin fever. At the end of his 3-week sickness, Kevin showed back up at Snow Creek and I was worried that things might be a bit weird. However, they were not odd at all, but very comfortable. We started talking and skiing together whenever we got the chance.

To my own surprise, I invited Kevin to use my couch as a place to stay when he started asking around for somewhere to stay that would be closer to Snow Creek than driving all the way back to Independence, MO. He accepted and has been with me ever since! While commuting to Snow Creek together, we went on our 1st dinner date to Applebee’s one evening after skiing. After dinner, we sat in the car talking and watching it snow. It was a beautiful night to share our 1st real kiss.

It was now time to decide if we were actually dating and until we brought it to Larry, I was uncomfortable dating the son of a man that told me I was too old to date his son. So on February 10, 2015, Kevin talked to his Dad about us dating. And to our surprise and Larry’s, he didn’t even remember that he told me I was too old for his son! I now felt relieved and free to date Kevin! 2 years later…

how they asked

On February 10, 2017, the same day that we officially started dating, I would have had a proposal. We had looked at rings and had custom ordered a ring with the blessing of my parents and my Mom’s center diamond as an heirloom. I, however, unknowingly fouled up the plans for this proposal by being an unusually logical person! I was going to be working the entire weekend in Colorado and decided that Kevin should save his vacation time from work for my Spring Break week, where I would be free for half of the week to play on the slopes in Colorado. Little did I know what day February 10th could have been!

Spring ahead to Spring Break! After passing successfully through the “make-it-or-break-it” period of our relationship, I was uncertain as to whether it would be the right time for a proposal. I would have to wait and see. The excitement for the week began on day 3, when Kevin unsuspectingly weaved back and forth underneath the Breckenridge boundary ropes on his way down to the lift. He got called over by a man in a yellow jacket…safety patrol. With unrealistic consequences for his actions, safety patrol pulled his pass and confiscated it for 30 days! I received the call while Kevin was attempting to rectify the problem and began to think that a proposal just wasn’t meant to be this week. Luckily for Kevin though, we have a hero in one of my supervisors at Breckenridge: Brian Scott! Brian worked with us both at Snow Creek before moving out to Colorado to work at Breckenridge. Knowing what a great guy Kevin is, Brian made a few phone calls and explained the situation, helping to get Kevin into a safety course the next day, allowing him to complete the course and get his pass reinstated. It wasn’t until afterwards, when Kevin could thank him that he learned of the huge undertaking Kevin was planning on this trip and how much it meant to Kevin that he was able to snowboard during this week.

After four days of teaching skiing, during which everyone else that joined us for this trip were having fun, I finally got to go out and ski with none other than my favorite guy, Kevin! While everyone else was taking a day of rest, we took to the slopes of Breckenridge. We skied everywhere and had a great time flying down the hill together. By the end of the day, we were exhausted but feeling great. However, there was no proposal. Our one day alone on the mountain together and I didn’t have a ring. My dreams of being proposed to on top of a mountain would have to wait. The rest of the week we would be racing around with our group of friends we brought with us to Colorado.

It is now March 18, 2017, our last day of skiing before we head back the next morning. We decide to go to my favorite mountain to ski, Arapaho Basin. It’s a beautiful day out and we take off for the top of the mountain with our friends Jae, Brian, Jordan and Rachael. On our 1st run of the day, we cruise casually down the mountain and veer off into some easy tree runs half way down the mountain. Since Rachael is a beginner tree skier, I hang back with her to make sure we get through the trees and have fun. Meanwhile, Kevin gathered the rest of our friends together while they waited past the trees in the middle of a wide open area between the Wrangler and Sundance runs, on what could be considered part of the Chisholm Trail or the Argentine North Fork Trail. As Rachael and I came out of the trees, I zoomed up pointing in the direction that I wanted to go from there, but Kevin halted me saying that he needed to take a break. A little surprised that he would need a break after already waiting for us, I stopped moving and just then realized that he didn’t have both feet in his snowboard as he knelt down, pulled out the ring box from behind his back and asked me, “do you wanna get married?” After verbally crying (he said) and saying, “I didn’t think you brought it,” Jae asked what the answer was and I said “yes!” I couldn’t have been happier with a proposal at my favorite Colorado mountain on a bluebird day. I didn’t stop smiling the rest of the day.